[Sac-news] Honoring Indigenous People's Day & More

[Susan Leslie]

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SOCIAL ACTION CHAIR (SAC) NEWS
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Dear SAC-News Readers:

In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, celebrated on Oct. 12th, we have a special feature on the UUA home page -- UU-Supported Community-Based Investing Helps First Nations People Return to Their homes by Sassy Smallman, Member, First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, Kennebunk, Maine

At the age of 62 Viola Cotta, a Penobscot Indian born on Maine's Indian Island, did something she had always dreamed of doing: she bought a home on Indian Island and returned to live with her tribe. Viola's dream, realized four years ago, became a reality with a mortgage from Four Directions Development Corporation, a non-profit, Native-governed community development financial institution (CDFI). 

Four Directions raises the capital to make loans from public and private sources. Two years ago, Four Directions and the Maine Council of Churches (MCC) joined forces to create the Giving Winds Capital Campaign as a means of outreach to communities of faith. 

To read the whole story go to http://www.uua.org/ or scroll to the end of this message.

To learn more about Community Investing, sing up for the UUA Committee on Socially Responsible Investing's Teleconference on Community Investing on Oct. 14.  See http://www.uua.org/finance/sri/ for details.

If your congregation is holding a Living Wage Day Service or Event this weekend (see http://www.uusc.org/programs/econjustice/wagejustice/index.html) please send in reports and photos to me at sleslie at uua.org to be featured on uua.org and uuworld.org weekly.

If you are planning to screen THE GROUND TRUTH, please invite local veterans groups to be part of panels and follow-up discussions.  Initial reports indicate that they very much want to be included and need to be heard.  See http://thegroundtruth.net and a UU page of resources at http://www.uua.org/uuawo/new/article.php?list=type&type=18.

In faith, Susan

Also in this issue:

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COMING UP:

1) Apply for a The People Speak mini-grant! (deadline Nov. 20th)

2) DRUUMM (Diverse & Revolutionary UU Multicultural Ministries) & ARE (Allies for Racial Equality) Conferences in St. Paul, MN - Nov. 10-12 (Register by 10/20)


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1) THE PEOPLE SPEAK!

Dear Religions for Peace-USA Colleagues,

Where are the TPS Mini-Grants?

Many of you have written to ask about "The People Speak" (TPS) this year.  "Hey, Bud, where are the mini-grants?"  

 

RFP-USA (http://www.rfpusa.org/) was asked to take a technological approach to TPS (http://www.thepeoplespeak.org/), so we have been asking you for blog content, presenting audiocast and videocast opportunities, and so on, instead.  BUT... we are heeding your requests for the traditional public-event mini-grants and have discussed it with our colleagues.  One of our TPS partners, IDEA, is administrating grants that will also now be available to religious communities who host an event on the themes of TPS 2006.  Here is what you can share with folks in your community...

How Can My Organization Get a Grant to Hold an Event?

It's simple: three steps. All your organization has to do is organize events that involves people talking about this year's TPS theme, "Working Together with the World: What's in it for the United States?" The three main topic areas are: (1) Peace, Security, and Human Rights; (2) Energy and Global Climate Change; (3) Millennium Development Goals (A series of eight goals that the UNF and its supporters would like to reach by 2015).

Step One: Think of events (such as public discussions, debate tournaments, panel talks, media content, and so on) you could organize. Please refer to the TPS Toolkit for more ideas and information to help you prepare.

Step Two: Once you've thought of the events you'd like to host, go over the TPS Grant Application Form Instructions, to help you fill out the TPS Grant Application Form. In the Grant Application, you will include a budget indicating how much funding you would need.

When approved, organizations will be awarded a lump sum for their series of events. Funding is limited, so please apply as soon as possible.  The absolute last date to apply is November 20th, as TPS ends on November 30th.

Step Three: Host your TPS event and then, send in a Report of the TPS events you held. We especially like pictures!

That's it!

Thank you for sharing word of this in your communities and networks.  Religions for Peace-USA is pleased to provide resources that support the common interests of our member communities.

Sincerely,

Bud

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Rev. Bud Heckman, 
Executive Director
Religions for Peace - USA, Inc.
777 United Nations Plaza, 9th Floor
New York, NY  10017
T: 212-338-9140
F: 212-983-0566
E: bheckman at rfpusa.org
www.rfpusa.org 

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2) 4th ANNUAL DRUUMM Conference
    November 10-12
    Unity Church, St. Paul Minnesota 

Registration Deadline is October 20, 2006.
 
http://www.druumm.org/Registration2006.html

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UU ARE CONFERENCE - Nov. 10-12

>From UU Allies for Racial Equality (UU ARE):

We hope you will join us for the Allies for Racial Equity Fall Conference at Unity Church in St. Paul, MN. I think that we have put together a very exciting agenda, starting with the opening of the conference on Friday night featuring Petra Aldrich as our keynote speaker. On Saturday we start with a 3 hour business meeting followed by three outstanding workshops along with caucus times. We end the day with the annual ARE elections for the Steering committee.

Since ARE was formed last November, we have accomplished much. We were visible at GA working in collaboration with DRUUMM to provide ally ship and chaplaincy to many people and have been recognized by the leadership of the Association as a viable and important addition to other groups who are doing anti-racist, anti-oppression and multicultural work that is so important to our faith community.  During our 3 hour business meeting it is the hope and desire of the Steering Committee to continue working on building a solid structure for ARE so that in time our organization will grow stronger and healthier.  It is the call from DRUUMM that motivates us, but even more important is the call for all white people of privilege in our Association to work on issues of oppression so that we can truly become a beloved community for all. 

I look forward to seeing many of you and I encourage you all to please spread the word about this conference to your congregation, your friends, and your other UU colleagues. 

In faith. Nancy Lawrence - Program Coordinator - ARE Steering Committee

Registration forms and housing information are located on the ARE website: http://www.uuallies.org/ (housing and registration forms are there now, this document should be up within a few days, keep checking!)


ARE CONFERENCE AGENDA
NOVEMBER 10 -12, 2006

Friday
9:00 AM -5:00 PM
All Day Steering Committee Meeting
 
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Welcome and Keynote speaker (Petra Aldrich)

Saturday
8:00 AM - 8:30 AM
Worship
 
8:30 AM - 8:45 AM
15 min Break
 
8:45 AM - 12:00 PM
ARE Business Meeting - Agenda to be posted on website and listserv soon
 
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Lunch 
 
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
3 Workshops and 1 open space for caucusing Descriptions below
 
3:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Break
 
3:15 PM - 4:15 PM
*Age Caucus - related document below
 
4:15 PM - 4:30 PM
End of Day Process
 
4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
ARE Elections
 
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
DRUUMM/ARE Communal Dinner - Unity Unitarian Church
 
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Conference closing ceremony

Sunday
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM
Worship with Unity if you're still in St. Paul

* There is the option of attending an age caucus or continuing in your workshop for that time slot to do Q&A and process.


ARE Fall Conference Workshop descriptions:

Cultural Appropriation, Community, and Covenant Led by: Gini Courter

On the last weekend in September, representatives from ARE, DRUUMM, and the UU Musician's Network gathered at the invitation of UUA Moderator Gini Courter to discuss Cultural Appropriation with music as the context. The group left the weekend with a working definition and three sets of recommendations about cultural appropriation. In this workshop, we'll present and discuss the work of this group and the implications of these recommendations for General Assembly 2007. 

How "allies" are shaping up at two California congregations: San Diego and Long Beach Led by: Joan Cudhea, Tomas Firle, Michael Sallwasser

In the last two years, the Long Beach ARTT met with several key committees in the church. This year, Long Beach is focusing on curriculum development and hosting a Jubilee 1. San Diego (First Church) was advised not to do so during an Interim Ministry period, and has thus been evolving on a more organic track. San Diego has a DRUUMM group and a White Allies group accountable to it. Together, these two groups, under the aegis of a Board JTW Committee, have created a new Transforming Community. Long Beach does not have such groups. What can we learn from the experiences of these two congregations?

Workshop on White Privilege
Led by: the Rev. Bill Gardiner

* WHITE PRIVILEGE
Dealing with the special privilege that whiteness confers is one of the central issues for white anti-racist activists. Since the days that Europeans first came to the Americas whiteness has brought special power, privileges, and benefits. These phenomena are self perpetuating - continuing to operate in the institutions of our society.  For most white people whiteness is the norm and often those of us who are white don't see it.  Changing awareness becomes critical.  And developing new strategies for dismantling this privilege become important organizing tasks.
See ARE website for 2 papers related to this workshop.

Age Caucusing at the ARE Fall Conference

As UU Allies for Racial Equity strives to become an intergenerational, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive organization accountable to DRUUMM, it is important that we pay attention to dynamics within our own organization.  Right relations between youth, young adults, and adults are essential to our work.  We all have gifts to offer to each other and to this journey toward wholeness, but when our minds and hearts are separated by systems of age-based oppression, we cannot effectively do this work.  We cannot build bridges and be truly accountable to DRUUMM without first being accountable to one another.

Youth and young adults in our community have called on us to make ARE a truly intergenerational organization and to do some deep reflection around issues of age and ageism.  

* What messages do we all internalize about age? * How do we feel about our age group? * How do we feel about other age groups? * How have these messages contributed to an environment where some age groups are more represented than others? * Where some feel more welcome than others? * How can we be accountable to youth, young adults, and adults in DRUUMM - recognizing that DRUUMM is an intergenerational organization?  

These are questions that we must all ask ourselves.

One setting in which to ask ourselves these difficult questions and to wrestle with our answers is in age-based caucuses.  Caucusing is an opportunity to dialogue with people who you share an identity with - in this case that identity is age.  At the ARE Fall Conference we will take some time to caucus as youth, young adults, and adults to reflect on our roles in this organization and how we can work together.  

Over the past year, ARE has struggled with age dynamics and the lack of youth represented in the organization.  Caucusing, which will happen mid-day on Saturday, can be a time to process how our identities have played out at the conference, and also to nominate ARE members in each age group to run for leadership positions in the organization.

Caucuses are a place to reflect on ourselves and minister with one another.  They are also a source of strength, hope, and a sense of solidarity that allow us to sustain us on our journey toward wholeness and accountability to People of Color of all ages.

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UU-supported community based investing helps First Nation people return to their homes 
 
Donna Chapman tends flowers on the 
deck of her new home.
Photo courtesy Shirley Smallman.  
By Sassy Smallman
Member, First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, Kennebunk, Maine

At the age of 62 Viola Cotta, a Penobscot Indian born on Maine's Indian Island, did something she had always dreamed of doing: she bought a home on Indian Island and returned to live with her tribe. Viola's dream, realized four years ago, became a reality with a mortgage from Four Directions Development Corporation, a non-profit, Native-governed community development financial institution (CDFI).

Four Directions raises the capital to make loans from public and private sources. Two years ago, Four Directions and the Maine Council of Churches (MCC) joined forces to create the Giving Winds Capital Campaign as a means of outreach to communities of faith. The program has gained the support of many Maine UUs. MCC's Executive Director Jill Job Saxby, an ordained UU minister, observes, "Giving Winds offers a way for UUs and other people of faith to put their values to work in community-based investment programs."

So, through the support of the Four Directions program, when Cotta touches the hand-woven baskets hanging in her kitchen, she is also connecting to a tradition and culture reaching back hundreds of years. Her ancestors wove similar baskets from ash and sweet grass long before Columbus crossed the ocean. Cotta was adopted at age four and moved to Moosehead Lake with her new family. With that move, she left behind island life as well as the culture and practices of her Penobscot tribe. Growing up off the reservation, Cotta did not get to know her own culture - to weave baskets, to be a part of the smudging ceremonies, to participate in the dancing or the drumming.

"I missed all that growing up. And I was not taught my own language. But I did tell my son about life on Indian Island and he came here 20 years ago to learn about and be part of his own culture."

Viola Cotta's new home sits about a half-mile from that of her son (who resides in a home originally belonging to his grandmother). And the Four Directions Development Corporation, dedicated to supporting affordable housing and grassroots economic development for tribal members in Maine , was the bridge that connected Viola's heritage to the path that led her home to Indian Island .

Interestingly, the program that helped bring Cotta to her ancestral home began out of election defeat: a resounding "No" vote had killed a controversial casino proposition on the 2004 Maine ballot. Although the Board of the Maine Council of Churches had taken a strong stand against the casino, Jill Saxby said, "Our Board didn't want to just walk away from the issue of Native American economic development in Maine . We wanted to back up the 'no' vote with positive action." 

Had the 2004 referendum passed, a casino could have meant enormous revenue-raising possibilities for the four Maine tribes--the Penobscot Indian Nation, the Passamaquoddy, the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and the Aroostook Band of Micmacs. As with so many Native Americans across this wealthy nation, the four tribes face appalling poverty levels. Statewide, one in four Native Americans lives below the poverty line. In areas of Washington and Aroostook County , that figure stands at sixty percent. 

Statistics such as these and an ongoing commitment to Maine 's Native American community prompted the MCC to commit to help raise $1,000,000 under the Giving Winds campaign to support Four Directions in its work. So far, $660,000 has been raised, according to Campaign Coordinator Helen Scalia.

A central part of the campaign's success has been the support of the Northeast District (NED) of the Unitarian Universalist Association. Churches in the district can contribute to the campaign via either low interest loans or gifts - the latter collected during Giving Winds Sundays over a five-month period. During those Sundays, sixteen churches across the state raised nearly $16,000, which will be doubled by a matching grant from the US Department of the Treasury.

The loan arrangement was somewhat more complex, with the Northeast District making an initial $10,000 loan to Four Directions. Four UU congregations -- First Parish and Allen Avenue in Portland , along with congregations in Yarmouth and Kennebunk, followed the NED example, bringing the campaign loan total to $62,000. The Unitarian Universalist Association matched that amount and the US Department of the Treasury doubled that total. UUs helped raise about $238,000 to support Four Directions' work.

A key component of all UU congregational giving for affordable housing is the matching funds they receive from the UUA. The fund remains underutilized, however, and money remains available for congregations seeking to invest in affordable housing or micro-lending-related programs.

The Allen Avenue UU congregation was particularly creative in putting together its $12,000 loan for the project. When it became apparent that the church itself could not afford to make a loan, congregants came up with a novel idea: a few individual families would lend smaller amounts, say $1,000 each, to the church, which would in turn "bundle" those loans into a larger sum to Four Directions.

Cushman Anthony, Vice President of the board of Allen Avenue UU said, "The first declared principle of Unitarian Universalism is that we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Our second is that we covenant to affirm and promote justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.

"We have come to recognize that our forefathers have not treated members of American Indian tribes with justice, or with equity, and certainly did not promote the worth and dignity of tribal members to the same degree that they did towards persons who came here from Europe. We enjoy the privilege of not having to be bi-cultural and do not have to fight prejudice on a daily basis. Helping to make home improvement loans, home purchase loans, and business development loans is a pretty easy way to begin on that journey. For me, it is a question of giving back, of sharing the fruits of the life of white privilege which I received by accident of birth."

After attending the "Giving Winds Sunday" at Kennebunk's First Parish, one member gave gifts of $1,000 in the names of each of her three children. First Parish's Rev. Carol Strecker says, "The Giving Winds Campaign gave members of the congregation an opportunity to learn about the historic and contemporary issues facing their Native American brothers and sisters. It also gave them the opportunity to examine the dynamics of privilege. The congregation responded by choosing to open their minds, their hearts, and their checkbooks."

As Scalia points out, the federal matching funds to support such work through the US Department of Treasury are available until December 2006. The Giving Winds campaign will continue to raise funds toward its goal until then. And, she notes, Native American CDFI's such as Four Directions exist all over the country. (To find one in your section of the world, go to www.Oweesta.org.)

Viewed from a purely financial viewpoint, the Giving Winds campaign and Four Directions have been a wild success. Tami Connolly, Four Directions housing loan officer, says, "Of the loans we have made over the last four years, nineteen percent have been paid off. And our default rate is zero, compared to three percent nationally. This is important because it means we are able to lend more money out to new borrowers."

But Four Directions is about more than mortgages and loans. It's about helping Maine tribal members realize their dreams. "There are so many stories that have touched my heart, from single mothers being able to realize home ownership, to young families buying their first homes, to seniors being able to move back to the community they grew up in," Connolly says.

For seniors or elders -- like Viola Cotta and Donna Chapman -- that move has allowed them to re-establish their tribal ties.

Like Cotta, Donna Chapman returned to Indian Island after a long absence. Donna left the reservation in 1967, in part because of the lack of job opportunities. She went to law school in the 80's and applied for law-related positions with the Penobscot tribe on several occasions. "Because I was 'off-reservation' and out of touch with the daily life here," Chapman says, "I was not successful."

When her sister Mary became ill, Chapman said, "I started coming home every three weeks to assist her. I applied for housing here and was certified but stayed eighth on the waiting list for years." In 2004 she found out about Four Directions which helped her put together a down payment on her home. 

She said, "From July through October I applied, obtained approval, got the water-sewer application in, picked out a trailer, waited for the work to be done, and moved in to my home in mid-December." When her sister's condition worsened, Chapman was able to help her make the transition to assisted living. 

"My trailer is on the family homestead and the memories from my childhood are a great comfort," Donna Chapman says. "I have the river within eyeshot. Being here allows me to contribute to the life of the community. I am listened to by some as I am an elder. The joy of my life is that I can see my sister every day if I want. I'm glad to be home at last." 

To find out more: 

Visit the UUA's Socially Responsible Investing website. For further information, contact Susan Leslie, UUA Congregational Advocacy and Witness Director, or Tim Brennan, UUA Vice President for Finance/ Treasurer. 

To find out more about the Four Directions Development Corporation: Susan Hammond, Executive Director. 

Learn about the UUA's Community Investing Matching Program, which supports financial institutions that lend or invest monies in areas of benefit to minority communities and underserved populations. 

 

Susan Leslie
Director for Congregational Advocacy and Witness
Unitarian Universalist Association
25 Beacon Street, Boston MA  02108
(617) 948-4607; sleslie at uua.org
www.uua.org/justice
Subscribe to SAC-News, Advocacy-News, JTW-News & SRI-News at www.uua.org/mailman/listinfo